Painters refer to the mark caused by the movement of a physical paint brush over a medium, such as a canvas, as a paint stroke or brush stroke. Similarly, graphics designers can use computer applications can create virtual paint strokes, defined by the movement of a virtual paint brush (or brush icon) along a path on a display. Graphic designers prefer using these virtual paint strokes instead of using straight lines, curves or other templated shapes, due to the visually appealing non-uniformity of the region or regions that can be defined by a single paint stroke.
Due to this non-uniformity, however, alteration of a paint stroke rendered on a display is oftentimes difficult, onerous and counterintuitive, and is always performed using a process that is non-analogous to the alternation of a physical paint stroke. For example, in many typical computer graphics applications, characteristics of a rendered paint stroke must be adjusted by selecting options on various nested menus, which may be distally disposed across the virtual desktop from the paint stroke itself.